Saturday, December 12, 2009

Music Without Words

A lot of people say they like jazz but don't really listen to it. They think all the different instruments and collaborations are nice in theory, the history is definitely interesting, but there aren't any words, and so no singers to tell us what is going on and how to feel about it. Meaning you actually have to listen, and sometimes wonder. Painting isn't like jazz.

A lot of people believe that just because a painting doesn't have a picture it has to be about emotions, ideals or metaphysics. I'm not sure where they get this idea but there are many paintings that are not about these things. Paintings that don't have pictures foreground what they do have: the materials the and wall, and how these things come together. Good paintings sometimes do not just show themselves but also the conditions by which they become visible (which is not the same as the visual). Their terms and interactions are unrelated to anything else we know other than by analogue. It's physical, which opens up to meaning in its own, apparently less accessible, way. This is the kind of painting that's not dead, just aware of its limits. And ours.